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Meredith Bell stands as a visionary leader in the realm of personal and professional development, co-founding and presiding over Grow Strong Leaders. Her work has been designed to revolutionize organizational dynamics by enhancing leader and team interactions.
By Meredith Bell
No leader works in isolation. Support and participation are needed from every direction to achieve the necessary outcomes.
That’s why every successful leader learns to develop strong business relationships based on trust and mutual respect. Effective communication skills are at the heart of this relationship-building effort, which is why they have become an important focus of leadership development and corporate wellness training designed to strengthen workplace relationships.
In this article, you’ll learn about three skills and two ways of being with others that can enhance your professional relationships.
The Role of Communication in Leadership
When leaders communicate clearly and authentically, they foster an environment where ideas are freely shared and collaboration thrives, strengthening relationships and results. Your influence is amplified by your ability to actively listen to understand others, stay curious, and demonstrate empathy.
Essential Communication Skills for Leaders
What does it look like to communicate well? While dozens of skills help you connect with others, these three accelerate relationship building because they demonstrate that you genuinely care.
Deep, Focused Listening
This kind of listening takes practice. You’re consciously giving the other person your full attention, eliminating internal (e.g., thoughts or judgments) and external (e.g., phone or email) distractions. You are not trying to think about what you’ll say next. Instead, you’re committed to understanding what the speaker is trying to convey. Very few people do this well because most are busy formulating their response. If you give the other person your full attention, they will feel it.
Be Curious
Instead of responding with a comment, ask questions that draw out additional information beyond what the person has said. Go deeper to discover what’s behind the statements they’ve made. Avoid making assumptions about what was intended and ask instead. You may be surprised at how quickly someone will open up when they sense you really want to hear what they have to say.
Express Empathy
Developing this skill means shifting from your own thoughts and feelings to sensing what the other person is experiencing and feeling. As Dr. Mark Goulston wisely stated in his book, Just Listen, “Making someone ‘feel felt” simply means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. When you succeed, you can change the dynamics of a relationship in a heartbeat. At that instant, you ’get’ each other and the breakthrough can lead to cooperation, collaborations, and effective communication.”
Strategies for Building and Sustaining Strong Business Relationships
To create professional relationships that last for years, or even decades, you’ll want to focus on your way of being with people. Think about how you want to show up.
These two suggestions can have a profound impact on the other person, and the more you practice them, the more effective you’ll be.
Commit to Unconditional Giving
This means you adopt a mindset that’s focused on being of service to the other person. You’re not asking, “What’s in it for me?” Instead, you ask an entirely different question, one I learned from Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler in their book, The Prosperous Coach. The question is this: “How can I serve this person so powerfully that they never forget our conversation for the rest of their life?” Focusing on service allows you to relax and stay calm because you’re not trying to impress or convince the person in front of you. You’re simply applying the three communication skills described above to discover how you can help them. You’re not expecting anything in return. You’re focused on giving, on being generous.
Elevate Your Appreciation of the Person
Before meeting someone, write down eight things you’re grateful for about that person. Focus on who they are and how they act, not whether they’ve ever done anything for you. This exercise set you up for the conversation with two critical elements:
1) a higher sense of the person’s value, and
2) a much fuller understanding of their significance.
During the interaction, you don’t need to talk about the individual items on your list. The other person will pick up on your attitude. Your words, tone, and body language will tell them they are valued and valuable. The beauty of this approach is that you not only elevate the person’s value in your mind, but you also help them elevate their opinion of themselves.
Leadership Communication in Action
Garry Ridge, former CEO of WD-40, is an excellent example of a leader who used practical communication skills to build lasting business relationships. During his tenure, he guided the creation of the company’s core values and was instrumental in embedding these principles into every aspect of WD-40’s operations and culture.
Garry ensured that values were not just slogans but operationalized in daily work. Employees were empowered to make decisions if they aligned with the company’s values, without escalating for approval. He held himself and leaders accountable for living the values, not just talking about them, and encouraged feedback and constructive criticism at all levels.
How Gary personally brought the values to life every day:
- Practiced and championed servant leadership, focusing on helping others succeed and using his position to serve the team rather than command it.
- Led with humility, often referencing his working-class roots and emphasizing that leadership is about responsibility, not status. He told me his favorite three words were “I don’t know” because he was always eager to learn from others and not pretend he had all the answers.
- Transformed WD-40’s culture from traditional management to one where employees felt safe expressing opinions, making mistakes, and learning from them.
- Reframed mistakes as “learning moments,” encouraging open sharing of successes and failures to foster innovation and eliminate fear of failure.
- Replaced the term “manager” with “coach,” signaling a shift from control to support and development.
Garry’s philosophy was that “it’s all about the people.” He aimed to create an environment where employees felt they belonged, were valued, and could contribute to something bigger than themselves. Under his leadership, WD-40 achieved exceptionally high employee engagement and retention, with employees expressing pride and respect for their workplace and leaders.
The Lasting Power of Human Connection
As you master the three communication skills focusing on serving and elevating others, you’ll find that you are building strong business relationships that can withstand the inevitable challenges in every workplace. The key is to practice them often so they become comfortable and automatic.
At WORKWELL Labs, we believe the strongest workplace cultures are built one conversation at a time. Helping leaders develop the communication skills that strengthen trust, deepen relationships, and foster meaningful collaboration is central to creating organizations where both people and business can flourish.
